Portland Community College using virtual reality to train students on emergency scenarios

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) - The field of Emergency Medical Services is facing a new kind of reality – a virtual one.

Portland Community College’s Emergency Medical Services program, or EMS, is using brand new Oculus VR headsets to better train students on different emergency scenarios they could face in real life. The VR training is part of the new Cascade Campus Medical Simulation Center that opened this past academic year to students.

The 2,200-square-foot center is the latest development in health care simulation to assess student readiness before they treat real patients in a hospital or an ambulance. Typically, PCC trains several hundred Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and about 25 paramedics every year.

Robert Victorino is the clinical coordinator of the EMS and Paramedic Program at PCC.

“This Simulation Center is designed to let us run simulations that begin with the 911 call including dispatch,” said Robert Victorino. “We use radios to dispatch students. The first environment is a simulated residence. The student can treat the patient in the residence, we can move the simulated patient into the back of the ambulance and from there we can move into the emergency room. The value of simulation in health care training is immense. It allows for both computer-based and VR headset delivery of EMS scenarios. VR in health care training has been around for probably 10 years, but platforms specifically for EMS have been nonexistent or very limited. As the technology and programming have become cheaper, it has opened up VR to our discipline.”

The Cascade Medical Simulation Center was funded by the 2017 bond to expand health professions by developing new interactive training spaces. The lab features three patient care spaces: one ambulance and two ICU nursing rooms, as well as two debriefing rooms.

There are isolated control rooms, allowing instructors to conduct training, observe and record students during the scenarios. This is done through an integrated audiovisual and technology system that provides easy playback of the recordings within two dedicated debrief rooms.

A new cloud-based learning management system gathers the simulation recordings and provides students and staff access from anywhere. This system, which allows faculty to evaluate and debrief with students with greater detail on proper medical protocol and technique, also lets staff gather extensive data on student improvements, equipment and space usage.

The VR simulation suite itself is funded by a grant from President Mark Mitsui’s Immersive Education Pilot Project that spurs training innovation within PCC’s career-technical programs. The suite sports a large format flat-screen monitor and ceiling speakers where instructors play videos of street scenes to simulate real-life conditions as the students wear the headsets. In addition, ceiling mounted cameras and microphones record the scenarios for playback and review by students.

“President Mitsui asked for two programs to volunteer to be a part of the VR initiative and we volunteered,” said Victorino. “We got 8 Oculus headsets. We worked with the software developer to get their program up and running and what we are doing at this point is we are authoring scenarios in virtual reality. Our students can either take a headset home and run the simulation by themselves and feel a little more relaxed and they don’t feel like they are being watched. The next step is they come into the VR suite that is a part of the Simulation Center and they will work in a team or hybrid situation. The team leader will have the headset and be in the VR space interacting with the avatar and the rest of the team had a mannequin and they will physically do the tasks the team leader delegates. So we learn not only team leadership in the virtual space, but team membership in the real space as well.”

Victorino builds clinical case scenarios based on the calls he experiences as a practicing paramedic with Skamania County EMS in Washington. He shares them with students in a realistic, real-time virtual environment that is repeatable and allows for mistakes, which leads to a greater chance for student success when they work on real patients, he said.

In the Simulation Center, lights and sirens on the ambulance room can also be switched on and monitors can be beeping in the simulated emergency room.

“We try to layer on as much stress as possible so they learn to work under pressure,” said Victorino. “The ambulance has all the sirens and alarms. We will have actors play as bystanders that ask questions and are involved in the 911 call. We have the students perform the medical calculations that we talk about in class. We try to create as much stress as possible so by the time they come to your house if you call 911, they aren’t bothered by or can manage the stress.”

A case study was conducted when PCC first started using VR, which allowed for direct feedback from students using the technology.

“They will tell you it allows them to experience chief complaints and medical emergencies in a safe, simulated environment before they are under the pressure of treating a real life patient. We had large percentages of the class that said it made them feel much more secure, much more confident moving into their practice with live patients having that experience with a wide range of simulated cases, whether they be virtual reality or simulation, before they were put in the role of providing healthcare.”

Victorino says he would like to see other programs at PCC utilize the Simulation Center and that the possibilities are endless.

“Simulation is a proven method for education,” Victorino added. “This space is an invaluable asset to PCC students from all health care disciplines.”